Seared garlic sausage & a trio of salads

With the sausage de nos jours being "pan-fried chorizo", to be contrary I went back to the exotic wurst of childhood delicatessen shops. For a contemporary twist, however, I seared the thickish slices in a smoking hot wok.

 
The white beetroot and horseradish salad was, again, a response to my childhood: on my yiddisher grandmother's table at every meal was a condiment called "Chrain", made from a coarse puree of beetroot and horseradish. The taste has remained with me, one of my favourite vegetable dishes being beetroot and horseradish dauphinoise. The salad is simplicity - skin the beetroot with a potato peeler or a knife, cut into small dice and nuke for 3 minutes in a closed casserole dish. Refresh under cold water and mix with equal parts of mayo and creamed horseradish sauce.

To pep up a simple potato salad - Jersey Royals scraped after boiling and refreshing - I added to the mayonnaise a spoonful chives preserved in olive oil that I keep as a staple in the larder.

The final salad was a sort of kitchen sink one: lettuce, tomato, cucumber, celery, onion, mixed peppers and baby sweetcorn with a bog-standard French dressing (home-made, of course!).

Full now!

Pork & Beef Arrabbiata with Cannellini Beans

What was going to be a quick and simple "High Tea" before going out to the theatre to see the new musical "Life" by Brian McCann turned into a full-on three course dinner.

Hannah said she'd been put off avocado by her mother's method of using it in salads - but she was willing to try mine; as she has a shellfish allergy, the staple with Prawns Marie Rose was out. However as my guest had (pleasant) dreams about my tarragon and lemon mayonnaise I decided to do another variation - with tomato ketchup - and diced crispy bacon. I think I went a bit overboard on the salad garnish!

The options for the main course were a chilli, a bolognese or a curry. In the end - to surprise - I went for a cross between the first two: pork and beef mince hotted-up with arrabbiata spices, rounded with bolognese herbs, and finished with cannellini beans.

For enough to serve 4: Soften 4 handfuls of chopped onion with 1 big handful of mixed peppers. Add 500g of beef and pork mince (Asda), a handful of diced courgette, 2 handfuls of chopped mushrooms and  2 dstsp of crushed garlic. Stir-fry until the meat begins to colour and add 1 dstsp of Arrabbiata spice mix (salt, tomato powder, garlic, pepper, pimento, sugar, cayenne, paprika, oregano, basol and cloves) and half a tsp of cayenne pepper. Stir in 250 ml of tomato juice and add 1 dstsp of tomato purée, 1 dstsp oregano, 1 dstsp basil, 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp sweet chilli sauce, 1 scant tsp sugar and a little salt to taste. Simmer on low for about 10-15 minutes.

Add  2 big handfuls of cooked cannellini beans, heat through and serve. We had ours with plain rice, though in retrospect I think tagliatelle might have worked even better.

My unpaid patisserie chef/baker had arrived with some meringues made overnight, a big tub of double cream and some amaretti biscuits. Plus a loaf of her home-made wholemeal bread, which we ate throughtout the meal. She turned a couple of fresh peaches of mine - on their last legs - together with some of the crushed biscuits and stiffly whipped cream into a stunning pavlova each.

The play was absolutely brillliant!